Snohomish County approves sales tax to expand drug treatment

It's called detox, the place where alcoholics and drug addicts end up when their bodies are so poisoned that they think they'll die — and might, without medical intervention.

Patients going through withdrawal see spiders coming at them. They sweat, vomit and shake.

At the end of four to six days in detox, many break through their denial and consider additional treatment for their addiction. But in Snohomish County, there are only 15 publicly funded beds available for such treatment for the estimated 12,500 adults in need.

And once patients are through detox and willing to accept inpatient care, there are only 22 residential treatment beds in the county — all of which are reserved for pregnant women and mothers.

Men and single women who may have tried outpatient treatment and failed must look for an available bed somewhere else in the state. Most are in Eastern Washington.

"We have guys with tears in their eyes saying, 'I need treatment now,' " said Linda Grant, director of Evergreen Manor in Everett, which runs the detox facility and the women's residential treatment center as well as outpatient treatment programs.

The lack of treatment options is one reason the Snohomish County Council today approved a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax to expand chemical-dependency and mental-health services. Nine other counties, including King, Skagit and Whatcom, have approved the tax.

In Snohomish County, the measure will raise an estimated $11 million a year for a system that advocates say is chronically underfunded and is projected to get worse as the state faces a $5.1 billion budget deficit. The state and federal government currently fund 80 percent of the county's drug- and alcohol-treatment services.

"These services are desperately needed in the best of times, and these aren't the best of times," said Jim Bloss, president of the Snohomish County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The new tax will fund additional detox beds, residential treatment beds, expanded drug court for adults and juveniles, a family treatment court, and drug and alcohol specialists for high schools. A triage center also would be created to provide an alternative to the county jail for addicts or the mentally ill experiencing an acute health crisis.

The current sales tax in the county ranges from 8.5 percent to 8.9 percent, depending on the city.

Cost vs. benefits

Some members of the County Council who supported the new tax say that untreated addiction is driving up crime and its associated costs to the Sheriff's Office, the jail and the court system.

"We can enhance public safety in a significant way if we address these problems instead of just locking people up and releasing them again a few months later," said Councilman Dave Gossett.

Several state studies have confirmed that treating addiction saves money. The state Department of Social and Health Services reported in June that expanding drug- and alcohol-treatment services to 4,100 patients in the 2005-07 biennium saved the state more than $16.8 million in health-care costs.

"Without treatment, these people show up in the emergency room, the jails, the mental-health system, the courts," said Ken Stark, director of human services for Snohomish County. "There are significant social costs if they don't get care."

But Stark said that few in Snohomish County who need treatment are currently receiving it.

Stark estimates that 12,500 adults in the county need drug or alcohol treatment. Last year, just 1,567 received it, he said. That means almost 90 percent of addicts got no treatment at all.

The problem is even worse for youth, he said, with only 235 people under the age of 18 receiving treatment last year, about 6 percent of the number estimated to need it.

Stark said Snohomish County's lack of services and long waits for treatment aren't unique.

Statewide, he said, "There are waits for everything." That's one reason the state Legislature in 2005 authorized counties to approve the special tax.

One of the lucky ones

Marleesa Booker, 25, counts herself among the lucky ones. Pregnant and faced with losing custody of her three children, she waited just two weeks for inpatient drug treatment at Evergreen Manor for her addictions to OxyContin and methamphetamine.

She'd tried outpatient drug treatment in Arlington, but the Marysville resident said she continued to get high on the weekends.

"It didn't work for me. It wasn't enough," she said.

In addition to addiction counseling, the mothers in the six-month Evergreen Manor program get parenting and life-skills classes, transition housing and assistance in rebuilding their lives when they are released.

Of all the addicts the organization treats, addicted mothers are the one group who "actually get what they need to succeed," said Evergreen Manor's Grant.

Currently, officials say, the county jail becomes the de facto detox and treatment center for many alcoholics, drug addicts and the mentally ill. A 2006 jail study found that more than 70 percent of Snohomish County inmates tested positive for drugs and about 25 percent for alcohol. The same study found that fewer than a third of inmates reported receiving any treatment in the previous year.

High recidivism

Nikki Behner, the jail's health-services administrator and a nurse practitioner, said recidivism is "extremely high" among chronic drug users. These addicts also require intensive and expensive medical care, she said.

Asked what she would do with an infusion of new tax money to pay for drug, alcohol and mental-illness services, Behner got tears in her eyes.

"I can't even imagine," she said. "The needs are so great."

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 or lthompson@seattletimes.com